US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Posts

The U.S. government will now have two copyright notices in DVDs and Blu-rays being sold. Everyone knows the first label that warns people about how the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyright work is illegal and criminal copyright infringement is investigated by federal law enforcement, which can be punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. The second label will be used for “educating” people that copyright infringement is not a victimless crime. Above is what the new message looks like (credit: Ars Technica).Continue reading →

The U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have started a large new round of domain name seizures as part of a global crackdown on piracy. Although the seizures are disputable, these types of governmental actions would be legitimized by the SOPA bill. This initiative is called “Operation In Our Sites.”Continue reading →

US District Court Judge Paul Crotty has ruled that the 1st Amendment does not prevent the government from seizing web domains. The issue was raised by the ICE’s shuttering of a sports streaming website called Rojadirecta.com. The owners of Rojadirecta claimed that because the site contained some legal content, seizing the website counted as a suppression of free speech. The judge disagreed, stating that “the main purpose of the Rojadirecta websites […] is to catalogue links to the copyrighted athletic events – any argument to the contrary is clearly disingenuous.” [Gizmodo]

The U.S. government has been proactive about taking down torrent websites. ICE – Homeland Security Investigations seized the domain of BitTorrent meta-search engine Torrent-Finder.com without giving them a court notice or complaint.Continue reading →